Going home

And as Adolph Hitler came to power, the Jewish families who had been constructive citizens for generations found themselves shunned and despised by growing numbers of emboldened Nazis.

My grandmother’s business was forced to close. My mother’s school friends told her she was no longer welcome at their homes.

When my mother was 14, she and her little family fled to New York. Most of what they owned, most of what they had saved, had to be left behind. Bereft, adrift, they struggled to start life again.

Flash forward 50 years, give or take a few, and the Germans invited Mom and other survivors of the Holocaust back to Ulm. For years Mom refused to go. It was as if everything and everybody she had lost in Nazi Germany was in a locked box in her heart, a lump too painful to explore. Finally she and my dad made one trip back. She saw old friends. She visited some of her old haunts. But once she was back in Houston, the lump hardened once again. The box slammed shut.

About a month ago, Mom was invited back to Ulm again. A synagogue is opening there, and city leaders want survivors and their families to participate in the celebration.

At first Mom said there was no way she going. Then my cousin gave her a call. And everything changed.

My mom says that before she dies, she wants to see Ulm and visit with her surviving European relatives. When she told me that, I said, O.K., I’m in. Then Mason was in. And my brother and sister and son, Buddyo, made plane reservations, too.

The trip at the end of November and early December may be the last chance to make peace with the deep, dark past.